Latest / Contractor Business Builder Podcast / The EASIEST Way To Double Your Construction Business Profit in 6 Months
Transcript
- 0:00There are ways to double your construction business profits in
- 0:02just six months, although it's not guaranteed they are proven
- 0:06to work. My client ban doubled his profit
- 0:08in less than four months and another client of mine robbed
- 0:10doubled his profit margins in just six months using the info
- 0:13that I'm about to give you right now.
- 0:15So in this video, I'm going to show you the easiest way to
- 0:17double your profit without increasing your stress or
- 0:20working 80 hour weeks. All right, the first method to
- 0:23doubling your profits and your construction business is a
- 0:26pricing change. Improve your pricing.
- 0:29And I know you're probably thinking, well, that's just so
- 0:31easy, that's so generic. But the truth is if you are
- 0:34having 10% profit margins and you add an extra 10% of margin
- 0:38on top of that, you've doubled your profits instantly,
- 0:41essentially. And I know what you're going to
- 0:42say, but then I'm gonna lose a bunch of jobs.
- 0:44I hear this from every single contractor I talk to.
- 0:47And I asked them, how do you feel about your pricing?
- 0:49They always think they're on the higher side.
- 0:51Even guys that I know are undercharging what their
- 0:54competitors are charging, they still believe that they're on
- 0:56the higher side. So that's often a mental block
- 0:58of where you feel like you've been, you know, getting over the
- 1:01head by clients so many times where they're like, oh, it's too
- 1:03much. It's outside of our budget.
- 1:05We went with somebody cheaper. Clients are gonna say that like
- 1:0790% of the time, even when it's not true.
- 1:10And even if that is the case, you're looking for clients who
- 1:13are the right fit, who are going to be able to pay what you need
- 1:17to charge in order to be and to have a good, solid, profitable
- 1:20construction business. I'm going to be giving you some
- 1:22tips on how to do that in just a second.
- 1:24But to understand this, if you've got a, a new home, let's
- 1:27say you know, 500,010% margin, you made $50,000, not bad, but
- 1:31nothing to, you know, get too excited about.
- 1:34But if you add an extra 10% margin on top of that, now
- 1:36you're making $100,000 on that same project, a little more
- 1:39exciting if you're like, well, I can't just raise my price 10%,
- 1:43no margins, which is like a 12% markup and expect to still land
- 1:47jobs. The truth is people are doing it
- 1:49across the country. It is happening everywhere.
- 1:52You have competitors in your market who are charging twice as
- 1:55much and making twice as much profit.
- 1:57Now, what you need to get in place to handle this is
- 2:00increments. So if you think a 10% price
- 2:02change is too much for you right now, do 5%.
- 2:05Even a 5%, you know, margin increase is still gonna make you
- 2:08an extra $25,000 on that project and put you in a much better
- 2:12place. And then as you grow or as you
- 2:14get more comfortable selling those types of jobs, you can
- 2:16increase it slowly to 10%. Now, branding alone can help you
- 2:21gain an extra 5 to 10% in margins because of the expected
- 2:25value of your company. And you may be an amazing
- 2:28company and do amazing work and have an amazing reputation, but
- 2:33if people look online or they see advertising that you're
- 2:36doing and it looks mediocre or it looks like a cheap
- 2:38contractor, they're going to expect cheaper prices and
- 2:41they're not going to want to pay you what you're worth.
- 2:42The other thing is having a high converting sales process.
- 2:45So a good pre construction sales process that you're bringing in
- 2:48leads and converting them into clients through an iterative
- 2:51process where they're making a small commitment to in the
- 2:54preconstruction agreement and then you're moving them on into
- 2:57the full construction contract. So having the right sales
- 3:00process and the right branding can easily help you gain 5 to 10
- 3:03percent extra margins without dropping your closing rate.
- 3:06And even if you're closing rate drops slightly, it is well worth
- 3:09the additional twice as much profit.
- 3:11Because if you make twice as much profit per job, you need
- 3:13half as many jobs essentially make the same amount of money
- 3:16you are already. So I highly doubt your closing
- 3:18ratio is going to drop by half just by raising your prices
- 3:21slightly. Method #2 doesn't just double
- 3:23your profit, also double s the amount of free time that you
- 3:26have and removes stress from running your company.
- 3:29And that is all about building systems.
- 3:31So you may have the best crews, good reputation, best jobs in
- 3:34town, but without systems, you're going to be stuck working
- 3:37in your business instead of working on it.
- 3:39Systems will double your profit by removing the amount of time
- 3:42that you personally need to spend in your business.
- 3:44Your time as a business owner, if you're doing anywhere, you
- 3:48know a few $1,000,000 in revenue a year, you're an hour of your
- 3:51time is worth thousands of dollars.
- 3:52So you have to realize that every hour that you can save
- 3:55your time by having good systems in place is going to increase
- 3:59your profits a lot. And also the the amount of like
- 4:02having to redo other people's mistakes, less mistakes by your
- 4:05people. Just having efficiencies
- 4:07throughout your business is easily going to help you
- 4:09increase your margins by 5 to 10% just by not having to do
- 4:13rework, having quicker training, getting more out of your people
- 4:17and decreasing your stress so you can sell better jobs and
- 4:19have better client relationships.
- 4:21There's so many benefits to getting great systems in place
- 4:24now. A 5% decrease in expenses
- 4:27through efficiencies can mean easily 25 to 50% more profit at
- 4:31the end of the day. I was mentioned it's not just
- 4:34about the profit, it's also about the stress so decisions
- 4:37can get made without you. Instead of a bunch of daily
- 4:39phone calls of what do we need to do, or this material is late,
- 4:42or you know, this client is asking about this.
- 4:44You can provide a playbook and you can provide training and the
- 4:49ability to delegate roles to help get that stuff off your
- 4:52plate and enable and empower your people inside your business
- 4:56to know what is the decision they can make and run with and
- 4:58what is the decision that they need to bring to you.
- 5:01And those decisions that they bring to you should become less
- 5:03and less as you build better systems and have better
- 5:06communication and controls in place, better quality control
- 5:10with systems, just easier processes throughout your
- 5:13business. It makes a world of difference
- 5:15and gives you just a great feeling that you know things are
- 5:18being handled well behind the scenes.
- 5:19There's gonna be some checks and balances.
- 5:21You're going to go to your weekly, monthly meetings and
- 5:24check in with the odd client or or so.
- 5:26But once you have a team that is performing through the systems
- 5:29that you've enabled them with, your business is going to be a
- 5:32magical thing and you'll get more profit with less stress.
- 5:36I've seen it happen time and time again.
- 5:38All you want to be thinking about when you're implementing
- 5:40systems is how to get removing, like wasted steps and extra
- 5:44fluff. There's often a lot of things
- 5:46that people are doing that they're just ineffective because
- 5:48they have old habits or it's old ways of doing things and they
- 5:51don't really understand that there is a system or process or
- 5:54better way of doing it. The other thing is automating.
- 5:56There's so much great technology out there that a lot of
- 5:59processes probably good. Twenty, 3050%, sometimes 100% of
- 6:03the process can be completely automated and nobody even needs
- 6:06to do it. This gets triggered through
- 6:07natural things that they're already doing.
- 6:09Method one and two are both the money that you charge and the
- 6:12free time they engage. Method 3 is about money that
- 6:15you've already earned but you're quietly giving away for free.
- 6:18And that is the change order loophole.
- 6:21There's a second profit centre on almost every job that you're
- 6:24running right now and most contractors know about it, but
- 6:27they don't want to touch it. And the reason they don't want
- 6:29to do those change orders because they're scared to ask.
- 6:31Now I understand you don't want to change order client to death
- 6:34and be that contractor, but at the end of the day, if there is
- 6:37legitimate scope change or the client is asking for upgrades on
- 6:41a project, you could even prompt upgrades on a project.
- 6:44There are ways that you can provide a better service, a
- 6:46better end quality product to your client if they'll pay a bit
- 6:50more. So any kind of legitimate change
- 6:52order, make sure that you're charging for it and discuss this
- 6:55with the client. Let them know why this is a good
- 6:58benefit for them. If it's something inheritable,
- 7:00the project that you're doing remodeling and there's some like
- 7:02water damage or something from years past, of course, change
- 7:05order. But on a new home build, there's
- 7:07often a lot of upgrades or things they maybe haven't
- 7:09considered. Or when you get into the build,
- 7:12there's stuff that comes up, the clients walking through and
- 7:14like, oh, it would be so nice to have this enable that.
- 7:17Make sure you're providing an estimate for the additional
- 7:19work, get it signed and then get a deposit for typically the
- 7:23entire change order. If it's a massive change to the
- 7:26project, maybe you're getting a deposit, but typically ask them
- 7:29to pay for the change up front. That way you know you're going
- 7:31to pay for it. It's not just a handshake kind
- 7:33of deal with it later. The client is like, well, you
- 7:35know, that's way more than I thought it would be.
- 7:37And then you're at slides with each other, especially when you
- 7:39have a lot of projects, you've got different project managers.
- 7:41It's very easy for your guys to be doing extra work or just
- 7:45taking care of things because they think it's the right thing
- 7:48to do without realizing that you've just spent a bunch on
- 7:51extra materials, on extra labour, on extra, you know,
- 7:54communication with the client. That's just draining your
- 7:56profits from the project that the client should be paying for
- 7:59because it's a legitimate change or upgrade to their project.
- 8:01Now, if you stack up the math on a typical project, there's
- 8:05typically A5, maybe even 10% change in the scope or the the
- 8:09price by the time you get to the end of the project, if you're
- 8:12not charging properly for that, you could easily be draining
- 8:14your margins 5 to 10% and there goes your profit.
- 8:17So if you wanna make sure extra work is documented, your guys
- 8:19are trained to identify, you know what might be extra work.
- 8:23That alone could be an extra 25, fifty, $100,000 on a project
- 8:27that's just getting drained away because no one is really
- 8:30tracking it. And what you want to be thinking
- 8:32about is make sure that you're giving an estimate for the
- 8:34change with price that encapsulates that.
- 8:38This is going to be a change in scope.
- 8:40There's probably going to be some delays to it.
- 8:41You've also got to put in the time from a project manager to
- 8:44actually make the estimate to talk with the client.
- 8:46There's administration. So there's additional things
- 8:49besides just the materials and labour and your regular margins
- 8:52that go into a change order. There's also the estimating and
- 8:55management time that you want to make sure you're calculating to,
- 8:57because I've seen this time again, where you may be charging
- 9:00for project management time, but you're not putting that in the
- 9:02change orders. And then you wonder why your
- 9:04project manager took so long on a project.
- 9:06Meanwhile, there's been like 3 major design changes and they've
- 9:10spent, you know, an extra 20 hours or 30 hours just dealing
- 9:13with the architect and the clients and giving them budgets
- 9:16and all this stuff that you weren't charging for properly in
- 9:18your change orders. So here's the recap for you.
- 9:20You don't need to spend 80 hours working in your business every
- 9:23week. Hire 10 more people or take on
- 9:25riskier jobs just to double your profit.
- 9:27What you need to do is charge 10% extra with a brand and sales
- 9:30process to back it up. Two is build systems that will
- 9:33save you a ton of time and improve efficiencies throughout
- 9:36your business. And #3 stop doing change order
- 9:38work for free. My client Rob used exactly this
- 9:41and he went from -52,000 in profits who is unprofitable to
- 9:45280,000 profit in one year. Ben in one year went from being
- 9:49unprofitable -28,235 thousand in profit in a one year span.
- 9:54You want to get one to one coaching to help you scale your
- 9:57business and double your profits.
- 9:58Click the link in the description to apply to work
- 10:01with me. And if you want to see how I
- 10:02scaled a construction company to 5 million in yearly revenue,
- 10:05then watch this other video where I break it down for you.